


Fate

by glacis



Category: Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Cassandra dies, Lex and Clark lie to one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate

_Fate.  Spoilers for the Smallville episode "Hourglass."_

He'd never killed anyone before.

Lex Luthor stared at the perfectly white soap foam sluicing off his reddened hands and scrubbed harder. He'd never touched death before, either, nor allowed it to touch him. Even when his mother ...

Turning off the thought with the ease of long practice, he hissed as the thin skin between his index and middle fingers gave under the harsh scrubbing. Staring as the trickle of red turning the bubbles pink deepened with a spurt, ignoring the sting, he wondered when he'd stop feeling the touch of her hand against his fingers. It had been cool, softly fragile as the petals of the white roses he'd dropped when he ran from her, and almost as pale. He hadn't noticed any change in her body temperature when she died.

When whatever it was she saw in his future killed her.

The door to the public restroom opened behind him and Clark, of all people, strolled in. Lex shot him a glance in the mirror, then returned to his useless hand-washing.

"Are you all right?"

The quiet question came from less than a foot behind him, and the absent thought struck him that Clark was the only one who could invade his personal space without setting off his internal perimeter radar. A mystery. Like the way the kid got onto his estate without setting off the alarms. Saved lives without apparent effort. Shook off mortal injury like a flea-bite.

No, wait. He said the car hadn't hit him.

Right.

"Fine," he answered lightly, as the silence grew long enough to make him aware of it. "I'm sorry about your friend."

"She was right, you know."

Blood welled suddenly, running down his palm as he clenched his fist, deepening the cut. It looked shockingly black against the white skin of his fingers. "About what?" he said with just the right amount of disinterest.

"She said that someone close to me would die. She saw her own death. Only she didn't know it would be hers."

Lex smiled suddenly, viciously, before wiping his expression clean. Not fast enough. Clark was looking at him strangely, his head sprouting over Lex's shoulder in the mirror. Lex shrugged.

"Guess she should have been a little more specific, hm? Didn't do her a lot of good to be able to see the future, when all she could do was scare you on behalf of everyone you care about and not see it coming herself." Everyone you care about. Lex's fingers relaxed. One more angle to the mystery.

To the best of his knowledge, and his knowledge was invariably sound, he and Clark's parents were the only ones he'd warned. That was ... intriguing. Clark shook his head, hair flying over his eyes, and Lex caught himself staring before Clark could. Carefully dropping his eyes back to the sink, he turned off the tap and stood, fingers dripping clean water, red swirls dissipating through it until they were gone.

"All she could see were flashes. It's not like it gave her a scorecard."

Lex snorted, then bit back a smirk. "Might have helped." Shaking off the last of the water, he tore paper towel from the dispenser and patted his hands decisively, ignoring the fresh sting from the cut. "What did she see when she saw your future, Clark?"

Those bright open green eyes clamped shut faster than a wolf trap. Clark shrugged and looked away, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Refusing, or perhaps unable, to meet Lex's eye.

Interesting.

"She didn't tell me what she saw in mine," Lex continued. Clark's face opened again, unfeigned concern writ large in his expression. It amazed Lex slightly how the boy could lie through his teeth and at the same time look pure as the driven snow. It wasn't a talent he'd expect of a farmboy, a good boy, a small-town favored son. But Clark was an expert at it.

Yet another mystery.

"She died, instead," Lex added, watching Clark intently.

For an instant, the concern was pushed out by horror, and Lex knew in that instant that whatever the old woman had seen in Clark's future had been tragic. Extending the logic, what she'd seen in Lex's must have been horrific. He felt the smile grow on his face and couldn't do a damned thing to stop it, knowing by the lingering shock in Clark's eyes that it was as cold as it felt.

"I'm sorry you lost a friend in Ms. Carver, Clark," Lex told him gently. I for one am glad she's gone, he added silently. "But I don't believe in fate. So whatever she saw, it doesn't matter."

"She told me you can either fear your future or embrace it, Lex. And maybe that's what makes the difference. If it's something bad, I mean. Something frightening."

Clark closed his eyes, longer than a blink, not quite a denial, and when he opened them again the shadows were gone. Lex wondered who'd taught him to hide so incredibly well. It had taken years for his father to beat that into him, and he still slipped up sometimes. While Clark, golden boy and parents' darling, was a natural.

Why?

"Maybe by meeting it head-on it makes the scary stuff more like an obstacle, something to overcome, not something to become," Clark added uncertainly.

Lex reached out deliberately, brushing the hair out of Clark's eyes with his damaged hand. "Of course," he lied. He smiled up at Clark, who was staring at him, all concern again. A tiny smear of blood marred the tanned skin of his left temple.

The urge to lick it away was undeniable. But control was one thing Lex did believe in. As strongly as he didn't believe in fate.

"Are you okay?" Clark persisted.

"I should be asking you that," Lex pointed out. Clark shrugged again. Fifteen going on fifty, taking care of everyone in his orbit. Not a personality trait to which Lex would ever relate.

"I'm okay. It kind of makes sense, now, what she said, about the dying and ... everything."

The pause was telling. Lex stared at Clark again, willing him to give, as if the weight of Lex's desire to know would crack him. But Clark was made of sturdier stuff, and once again he deflected Lex's unspoken questions. Gesturing at the slow trail of blood winding Lex's fingers, he winced.

"You need a band-aid."

Lex couldn't help it. He laughed out loud. Then laughed harder at the confused grin Clark gave him.

"Somehow I think it's going to take a little bit more than a band-aid," Lex finally got out when his laughter died. "I'm fine, Clark," he lied again. With another uncertain smile, Clark ducked his head and left the room, shooting glances at him as he did. Leaning against the sink, staring at the door as it closed behind the tall figure, Lex murmured, "As I'll ever be."

Fate.

What bullshit. Shaking his head at his own momentary foolishness, he left the restroom, left the building, and headed back to his mansion and his mysteries.

Behind him, on the rim of the sink, he left a single blood-black fingerprint.

end


End file.
